GPL = GNU General Public License
LGPL = GNU General Public Library License
BSD = Berkeley Standard Distribution (from UC Berkeley)
BSDI = Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (sellers of non-AT&T berkeley unix-clone)
BSDJ = BSD software as modified by Bill Jolitz and friends (freely distributed)
The announcement *did* say this wasn't going to be gnu.misc.discuss...
so let's focus a bit.
A free software business is one that allows its customers the same
privileges that it, itself, has with respect to the software.
This includes public domain software, "donation requested" shareware,
"UC Berkeley copyright" software, GPL, LGPL, and many more variants.
It does *not* include BSDI software -- which is exactly as free as USL
Unix. If you pay the source license fee, you can use the source on
one machine, and share changes with everyone else who's done so. If
you didn't pay the source license fee, you are unable to read or
modify the software. In either case you don't get a right to
*distribute* the software. (USL charges $100,000 for the source
license; BSDI charges $1,200, but the terms are the same.)
There's been confusion between the various BSD variants. BSD's
software was originally USL-licensed, but they have made several tapes
of software that is not based on USL's code; these are freely
redistributable under a "UC Berkeley" copyright. BSDI is a for-profit
business that took those tapes and hacked them over to make a
commercial product for PC's, which is *not* freely available. BSDJ is
a nonprofit effort which is headed by Bill Jolitz, which took the
tapes and hacked them over to make a freely distributable product for PC's.
BSDI and BSDJ call their products "386BSD" or "BSD386"; if confused,
figure out which organization it's from, not what it is called.
John Gilmore
Cygnus Support